#TJ Clark

[notsoterriblymisanthropic]

When writing about Trump, there’s a question of distance. He gives every sign of being an odious human being, and he flaunts the odiousness, knowing that it maddens his opponents and electrifies his cult. What he did as president last time, and what he promises to do next, will cause misery for millions of people. Isn’t writing obliged to answer the loathsomeness and cruelty with spleen? But isn’t that what Trump-fiction depends on? Go in close, grapple and smear, and one immediately feels Trump-fiction exulting in one’s distaste. He rides the late-night laughter. The things they say about me! His Arnold Palmer swells. Is the answer analysis, then? A cooler tone. Is it possible to treat Trump as a political – a historical – occurrence? A ‘formation’, as we used to call it. Supposing we take the whole form of politics and leadership described so far, including its ludicrous deficiencies and so far unanswerable strengths, as a phenomenon, an expression, of an empire in decline. In particular, of an empire whose immense superiority over its rivals in terms of military power, control of (most) dependencies, dictatorship of ‘innovation’, image of the good life, and sheer mind-boggling wealth, remains unquestioned, but depends now on an economic system that fails to satisfy its own ordinary middle (read, working) class.

TJ Clark, A Brief Guide to Trump and the Spectacle

[bruciemilf]

Actually, it would be incredibly funny if TJ ended up dating either Lois or Jimmy, verifying the “every Wayne needs their superfam member” theory as fact.

[queer-book-character-tournament]

Queer Book Ship Tournament 2025 Round 1

Rune Saint John/Addam Saint Nicholas- The Tarot Sequence by KD Edwards

Constansa/Magdalena/Alexi– A Dowry of Blood by S.T. Gibson

Luca Ancier/Touraine- The Unbroken by C. L. Clark

Linus Baker/Arthur Parnassus- The House In The Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune

[jetslay]

Superman & Superwoman by TJ Frias.

[novelconcepts]

Another year, another absurd amount of books read (296, because if I wasn't reading or writing this year, my brain was on fire). I was asked again for my top books of the year, so here we go: 2023's top 10, in no particular order.

This was the first book I read of the year--literally, vacated the hangout with my wife and sibling-in-laws to sit on their couch upstairs and eat through it. Do you love The Fall of the House of Usher, but wish for a nonbinary protagonist and a lot more mushrooms? This is the book for you! (T. Kingfisher is fucking rad, I made a concerted effort to only list ONE of her books on here, but honorable mention goes to The Twisted Ones for fucking me upppp.)

A gay, post-apocolyptic Pinocchio retelling involving copious robots, found family elements, and a cool-ass treehouse. Klune always hits for me with his unrepentant queer family dynamics and sense of humor. Honorable mention to the first two in the Green Creek series (although that's got a lot more...adult elements in among the werewolves, you've been warned).

I thiiiink I found this through The Homo Schedule podcast (PSA: if you missed out on Jasmin Savoy Brown and Liv Hewson doing a podcast together, now you know better), and it wrecked my shit. Tons of trigger warnings, as this is a memoir about abuse within a queer relationship, but it's so beautifully written. I personally suggest listening to the audiobook first, then standing anxiously behind someone at a book warehouse sale, hoping they'll set down the only paperback copy so you can swipe it.

A fantastical-historical reimagining in which the KKK is filled with literal monsters, and Black women are resistance fighters armed to take them out. Visceral and intense, and truly an excellent horror story.

Just. Such a soft time travel story about a daughter and her father and cherishing the time you get with loved ones. I was thoroughly unprepared for how lovely I found this one. It's very kind.

Spooky house, take-no-shit redhead, protective sibling elements, bisexual recluse with a sword who really just needs a nap. I haven't found a Harrow book yet I haven't slapped five stars on. She's so good at character and atmosphere, and I'm always surprised at how fast her stories race by.

The whole Daevabad trilogy (of which this is the first book) is just magical. A girl from the mortal world finds herself embroiled with the centuries-long prejudices and wars of djinn in a fantastical city. It's one of the rare stories of its kind that does have a love triangle, but doesn't feel like a love triangle; it's far less interested in the insufferable "who gets picked" than it is in the actual horrors these people are both perpetrating and coping with. It's an intoxicating ride.

Fuck You, TERFS: the book. Given that fact, there's obviously quite a lot of transphobia to deal with, but it's very clear that those people are wrong, and it's a super-engaging (and super-oh-god-what-comes-next) witchy time populated with queer, protective, interesting characters I'm excited to see again in the follow-up.

Have you ever wanted a haunted house story with visceral imagery and a rather lovely twist? Gailey has you covered. As much as I enjoyed The Echo Wife, I think I actually loved this one more, and it makes me so excited to see what else they've got up their sleeve.

One of my final reads for the year, when I was just churning through hardcovers at the speed of sound. I love this book. I recognize it won't be for everyone, but it takes so much of what I love about IT (one of my all-time favorite books, despite its flaws) and twists it through the lens of an author who escaped the Mormon church. It's horrific, it's fantastically abstract in places, it explores childhood and memory, imagination and abuse, and almost every character is queer. It's a great "I simply cannot sleep until I've finished" read.

[roseunspindle]

What I read in April 2025

Was not expecting someone to get eaten right off the bat though given the title... XD

I would almost be following but things felt like they jumped around a lot and I kept feeling lost as to "when" I was in the story and often where.

Stuff was being stressfull at work so I re-read 1-11 of this series. It's bright and happy and silly and unserious so a good comfort read.

Totally needed more characters to have emotions about. ^_^ I do think it's unfair that Haymitch gets read-in to the rebllion like "here it is" when Katniss is eternally kept in the dark. Louella....

I get why this book is so popular. Awwww 🥰

Ended up re-reading OG Hunger Games trilogy due to Sunrise on the Reaping. Ended up notcing so many more things on this read. ^_^

Golem garden...

re-read 1-3 and read 4 for the first time. Do enjoy this series.

Ah...this series is over. Good ending. Also can I have a carry-on spirit attached cat? Pretty please?

Weirdly felt like the book was trying to be shippy between Gus and Sacajawea. Also a little between our boy and Lewis. ^_^' I may just have my shipping goggles on too much though. Did spend a lot of time appreciating Sacajawea for being amazing and all the crap she went through in her life.

This was really good! Had to fight myself not to order the authors other two books. In time...

My mom puts this little book out every year around easter so I felt compelled to give it a quick reread. ^_^

Some truths about the Anadalites past and poor Ax being lonely and torn between what his people have taught him and what feels like the correct course of action.

[joearlikelikeswrestling]

[mothras-in-my-belly]

Just finished reading Piranesi by Susanna Clarke and I loved it so so much!! Just absolutely beautiful in every sense of the word, definitely recommend checking it out!

However, that also means that I've (mostly) caught up with my reading (everything else on my TBR shelves calls for a different mood) and I need to figure out what to read next asap.

So, obviously, something similar to Piranesi would be ideal - mood, plot, setting, the overall vibe, I guess? Little to no romance would be preferable, though I do enjoy some queer rep.

Some other books I've read and really enjoyed are The Starless Sea, Circe, The Song of Achilles, The Secret History, Vita Nostra, If we were villains, Bunny, The Ocean at the end of the Lane, Klara and the Sun, The House in the Cerulean Sea, The Witches of Vardø. Probably a whole lot more, but these are just from the top of my head.

So yeah, I would be so so so grateful for any recommendations from any of yall!! 🙏🙏 Thanks!!

[vino---delectable]

Why is everyone on this show so attractive.... Like.... EVERYONE???

[regaliasonata]

Boy/Girl parents for each Red Ranger

Jason: Both

Rocky: Girl Dad

Tommy: Both

TJ: Girl Dad

Andros: Girl Dad

Leo: Both

Carter: Both

Wes: Boy Dad

Eric: Girl Dad

Cole: Boy Dad

Shane: Girl Dad

Conner: Both

Jack: Girl Dad

Nick: Boy Dad

Mack: Both

Casey: Gay Kids

Scott: Boy Dad

Jayden: Boy Dad

Lauren: Girl Mom

Troy: Girl Dad

Tyler: Girl Dad

Brody: Boy Dad

Mick: Both

Devon: Boy Dad

Zayto: Girl Dad

Amelia: Girl Mom

[notsoterriblymisanthropic]

The theory of social change on which propaganda by the deed was premised in its heyday, when McKinley and Sadi Carnot and Frick and the empress of Austria took a bullet, was both too pessimistic and optimistic. Resentment and anger existed in plenty around 1900. But the idea that a single symbolic gesture, or a campaign of such, could light disillusion’s touchpaper ... that was fantasy. For a symbol to set off a social implosion, what was needed was an apparatus – a means by which the symbol could spread, allowing people to interpret what had taken place, inviting them to voice their contempt for official outrage, annulling, regrouping, disobeying, opting out. How could such a contagion possibly happen in the age of the wall poster and the back street printing press? But the apparatus now exists. Capital has made it – to its profit and its cost. The spectacle has metastasised. It is everywhere, at everyone’s disposal.

TJ Clark, A Brief Guide to Trump and the Spectacle

[queer-book-character-tournament]

Character, book, and author names under the cut

Gavin Livingstone- Green Creek Series by TJ Klune

Fatma el-Sha’arawi- A Master of Djinn by P. Djèlí Clark

Benji- Hell Followed With Us by Andrew Joseph White

Kade Bronson- Wayward Children by Seanan McGuire

[noahsbookhoard]

📚August 2024 Book Review (Part 4/4)📚

And that wraps it up for August! It had been a busy month but I loved the variety (although I could have lived without learning about Ignatius Reilly)

A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole

The misadventures of Ignatis Reilly, a lazy misanthropic man forced to work for the first time in his life in 60's New Orleans, from the Levy's Pant factory to hotdogs selling in the streets, around incompetent policemen, anticommunist elderly men, more or less dubious barkeeper and the gay community.

I haven't chosen to read this book, it was this month's book club blind draw. I probably would have read it ever if it wasn't for this and jury is still out on whether or not I would be happier not having read it or not. The book isn't even that bad! It just has the worst protagonist in the history of Literature.

The story itself is a satire of the US in the 60's, characters are archetypes turned into comedy by their meeting clashing personalities: the black man in need of a job and the barkeeper who wants to appear running a proper business but needs to sell explicit pictures on the side, the half blind half deaf already a little senile employee of Levy's factory about whom M. Levy and his wife keep arguing to see if she should retire or not... There's some sitcom comedy trope with an assortment of subplots opened but never closed as the story goes until one event makes everything fall back together in one perfectly geared sequence. This was good, this was funny, I wish this could have worked with Ignatius Reilly.

Sincerely the biggest reproach I can make to this book is its main character. Problem is said character is there nearly all the time and being an unsufferable 30 year old toddler who never ever face the consequences of his actions. Just thinking about Ignatius fucking Reilly makes me itchy. He is dirty, lazy, a liar, a hypocrit, self centered and just downright unpleasant. The most uncomfortable part of the novel were the articles written by Ignatius about hi experience as a worker because they are a concentrate of everything wrong with him with absolutely no critical perspective whatsoever. He is a racist that tried setting an insurrection by the black worker at the factory, he is a homophobe that tried to create a political party with the gay community of New Orleans...

I didn't even get the satisfaction of him getting, I don't know, run over by a cable car, punch in the nose by one of his former boss, kicked out of the house by his mom (or multiple of that I wouldn't mind) he just run away with his former girlfriend who is just as terrible on the opposite end of the scale.

It's a classic so I'm happy to have read it. But I won't be doing it again, thank you very much.

How to Raise a Kraken in Your Bathtub by P Djeli Clark

A mysterious ad in the papers caught the eyes of Trevor: an offer for a kit that allows you to raise your own mythical creature at home. It might be his chance for a grand achievement! But careful what you wish for...

This is the short story that won the Locus 2024 and my first meeting with author P Djeli Clark which I wanted to read for quite some times. I have in the meantime already read Ring Shout and I'm really thinking of putting Master of Djinn higher on the TBR, I have a new author added to the favorites!

This short stoey is wickedly efficient, either in characterisation or in worldbuilding. Trevor is brushed in two strokes as ambitious (That's literaly the first word of the story) but not a hard worker and unable to think longterm about his decisions. The addition of merpeople in the story is seamless: I never question how they got here, we were just in a fantasy uchronia now, okay, carry on.

The foreshadowing works really well too: the main character is too clueless to click it but the reader does and waiting for the other shoes to drop is really satisfying.

I don't want to say too much, but the twist at the end still managed to surprise me. I was expecting something but not that, and yet it felt like I should have. It painted the entire story in a new light for the last half page or so, I love it.

If you want to read it it's on the Uncanny Magazine website. It's a quick read but it's worth the time!

Rendez-vous avec la mort (An Appointment with Death) by Agatha Christie

From his hotel room in Jerusalem Hercule Poirot hears a disturbing conversation "You do see, don't you, that she's got to be killed?" The detective doesn't think much of it until the tyrannical Mrs Boyton, on vacation with her family, is found dead in the ancient city of Petra.

What is it with Agatha Christie and making her victim absolutely awful people? Is it so there would be more suspects? Is it so they reader is more willing to distance himself and play the Whodunnit Game? Anyway!

You can really tell that this novel was written based on Agatha Christie's memories of visiting the place, it felt very alive,very realistic and more picturesque than her other novels. The setting is always important of course but here it's almost a decor.

There was so many suspects and they all had a very good reason to want Mrs Boyton dead (or to protect the one who did it) this investigation was very intricate and the plot pulls the reader in many different directions. It's a good thing Poirot takes notes in the book or I would have done it myself.

For once I had caught the Important Detail That Gives You The Answer TM but I took it totally in the wrong direction! So I had a theory that was (or so I thought) rather solid but I was misled by a detail. Maybe I missed it but the reveal includes one key information that I can't remember seeing anywhere; it is the only link between two characters and the only thing that makes the motive makes sense so I was a bit surprised by who the culprit was. Or maybe that's just me being a sore lover because once again Christie bested me.

The only thing I really disliked about this one - and it's wierd that it's even there - is the epilogue. There is so rarely an epilogue in her novels that I'm wondering if Christie wasn't pressure to add this Happily Ever After. It is very awkward because it is almost to good to be true, every one is married to another character even when the pairing doesn't make sense and everything is just perfectly fine for all of them. Not to mention the young schizophrenic daughter married to her acting agent who is twice her age because that's not creepy at all! /s I don't know what the intention was but it just flops very hard after what is a really nice book, that's a shame really.

Fortunately it is nothing but an epilogue, and van easily be discarded as just and after thought and I will keep deluding myself in thinking that the novel ends after Poirot's dramatic reveal of the culprit, as usual.

Under the Whispering Door by T J Klune

Wallace is having a hard time accepting that he just died, he barely lived the life he had! So when a reaper comes to bring him to a teashop and to Hugo, a Ferryman tasked to help souls pass to the afterlife, Wallace will have to make the best of what little time he has left in the land of the living.

After reading The House in the Cerulean Sea every other novel by T J Klune were just begging to be read. I stalled as long as I could bear so here I am!

There is kind of a similar structure between the two books (the main character is very professional and cold but learns to open up, Hugo and Arthur have pretty much the same patient, observing and enigmatic personality. Even Charon's Crossing and the foster house or a little similar, two secluded places, meant to be welcoming and homely, yet totally unfamiliar and scary at times for the protagonist) but it never really bothered me: I liked how comfortable it felt to find it all back in this novel.

Through exploring other people's fate, how they lived, how they died, how they went through this time after death but before passing over, Wallace changes and learns to be a better person. The story itself isn't intricate but it is cozy, funny and the life lesson put through the author's word is more than just a feel-good novel line. The main subject, grief, is heavy but Klune handles it really gently, even in very hard moment, violent deaths and character who just can't accept their fate. And once again the love story, although it isn't the main focus is very important and drives the characters forward. It was sweet and nice and I really liked how bitter sweet it felt until the very end and they get the Happy End they deserved.

I read someone reviews saying that the ending was too much but hey, what's the point of writing stories if you can't make it all perfectly okay for everybody in the end? The dead don't come back in real life but if it makes the character of this story happy I absolutely want them to come back!

Aaaand that's close enough to a spoiler so I'll wrap if up: impeccably good read, go for it! Just be aware that it deals with grief and death, including violent deaths and suicide.

[allthistrashtalkmakemeitchin]

TJ: I want your girlfriend Ronnie: Kendall: No way- TJ: No, no, no. Not her. TJ, pointing to Jo: Her. Kendall: Jo: Ronnie: What do you mean? She's not Kendall's girlfriend

[thingy-wing]

Here I am once again speaking to the void.

I have no local book club anymore, and I just want to build myself a little community of book lovers with similar reading likes/dislikes! So here we go!

Hi all, I’m Mac (she/her)! I’m 23 and from western Canada! I’m currently working on my second university degree and as of December will be, officially, a teacher! I’m falling back in love with reading at the moment (I got to preoccupied with journals and research in my first degree for a lot of fun reading) and have been really enjoying rereading old favourites and asking those around me to read their new/old favourites!

Genres I like (and read most often)

- fantasy

- dystopia

- romance

- mystery (murder)

-historical

- horror (no particular subgenre as of yet)

Favourite books of all time?

- Taxidermists daughter, Kate Mosse

- Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen

- The Hunger Games trilogy, Suzzane Collins

- Piranessi, Susanna Clarke

- Horse, Geraldine Brooks

Favourite Books I have read in 2024

- Horse, Geraldine Brooks

- Everyone in my family has killed someone, Benjamin Stevenson

- Between two fires, Christopher Buehlman

- A certain Hunger, Chelsea G. Summers

Currently Reading:

- Wolfsong, Tj Klune

- The Cloisters, Katy Hays

- VenCo, Cherie Dimaline

I also read a lot of fan fiction which I am sure you will discover if you see my page!

[joearlikelikeswrestling]